


Four Lands, One Heart

by Liana Mir (scribblemyname)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Developing Relationship, Developing trust, Fantasy, First Times, Multi, Sexual Polyamory Rituals Related To Monarchy, Socially Encouraged Polyamory, the gods are real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:20:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/Liana%20Mir
Summary: The Four Lands had stood together for centuries, united under the molten metal heart of the City at the Heart of All Things. The northern kingdom of fire and wind, the western mountains of forest and ice, the eastern plains of iron and breath, the southern isles of stone and sea.The King or Queen of the heart married the Princesses and Princes of their lands, uniting metal and fire, ice and breath and stone. This had gone on for centuries and generations, and would for centuries and generations more.





	1. Beloved of the Gods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



The blood of priests and oracles ran thick in the royal family. Eleya had wakened from night sweats and visions when she was sixteen seasons old and been delivered to the convent furthest from the Royal City at the Heart of All Things. There she was devoted to the gods, and what has been devoted to the gods should not be taken back again.

“The Plague, my Queen.”

Eleya stared unbowed before the royal messenger, but it was not royalty that stiffened her back but the blood of the heavens within her veins. “I am the tithe.”

“The gods wish the tithe to rule.”

She spun her staff in her hand and caught down the last of the vines she had been seeking to harvest, delivering it into her basket. The basket tucked up neatly under her arm, the staff in her hand, she turned to go into the convent, one of many outposts of the Order Beloved of the Gods. She paused only once with a glance backward, that the messenger might understand her wish that he follow her.

None left of the First Royal Family but herself? It was unthinkable. They must have sinned greatly against the heavens to be so punished. Her blood burned and leaves in the canopy overhead whispered, but they did not speak to her, and she did not know why this would be.

She chopped and stirred and poured tea and soup before the messenger, ignoring his stiff back, the clear unwillingness to be served by a member of the royal family. ‘I am not royal,’ she wanted to tell him. ‘I have never been royal.’ But it wasn’t entirely true. She had a precious few memories tucked away inside her of mother, of another little girl she used to laugh with, something fuzzy that made her think perhaps she had had a brother.

She had delayed studying the sitting crown. It was unworthy of an oracle of the gods to avoid discomfort, but she had sought to avoid other things, like an inappropriate possessiveness of what had once been her own life.

“We have no other tea but the brambleberry.” Eleya had yet to send one of the younger novitiates to the village for more herbs, and the garden had been robbed of all it could produce to stave off Plague in all who asked.

The messenger waved aside her concern, as if for a moment he’d forgotten her new status with her plain speaking. He caught himself, looking mildly appalled.

She tapped the bowl closer to him. “Eat. You need refreshment. Do not make of me something I am not.”

He stared at her, suddenly grave, actual emotion and not mere necessity. He had not been trained long enough to be stoic, she considered, but even so, she listened to his words more closely, tasted the regret he imbued them with. “My Queen, I _must._ ”

Her mendicant’s staff leaned by the wall. She could feel the prayers of the young girls filling the convent air upon the hour, as if they were the convent’s breath. Her hands were callused and sun had made her skin and hair sticky with sweat. She stretched her arms in front of her as if to gather or wash or work, and the sigils scrawled across her arms burned.

 _Go, queen. Go, queen,_ the leaves seemed to whisper through the open windows. The breeze lifted the finer hairs on her arms and at her nape and temples. _Go to the Heart._

No, she supposed. He must deny her.

“It is not good to snatch back a gift from the gods,” she said.

Eleya had been trained her whole life to serve the heavens. She was not uneducated. There were sacrifices that could be made to appease them. She sighed. “It is not good.”

But she packed her things and went.

* * *

Eleya was the daughter of the previous Southern Princess. Yet it had been the Northern Princess who’d named her and taught her to listen to the wind. They did not devote their children to the gods in the northern mountains. They kept them close and listened to their counsel, but all of their land was to be devoted in service to their people, to their land, and to their gods.

She packed her things and remembered a braided coil of copper hair she used to clutch in the night whenever visions raised her from the bed. She had no such reassurance now, no one to stand between her and the gods but the most senior oracle at the convent. Eleya was being cast out from the order. She could hardly turn to the oracle now.

She paused in packing the tiny satchel. What need had she had for things before now? She looked around the cell that had housed her, a stone room just large enough for the smaller dances with a cutout window to allow the winds to enter. The floor was stone beneath a layer of packed dirt that allowed both humility and a comfortable surface for those dances. She’d been expected to leave this room, to sleep in peasant huts, to devote herself to the service of the land, to offer prayers and supplications and prophecies.

Her staff was against the wall and there was still a dark glow to the embers on her hearth. She snatched up the staff, stretched out her arms, and danced and twirled in the small space as her arms burned, sigils slowly glowing brighter as flames burst upon the hearth. She did not sing aloud but formed the verses in her thoughts that would carry her prayers upward.

‘Guide me and show me your will through this river of happenings.  
Do not let me be led astray in the twisting of truth or politics.’

Her feet faltered and her cheeks burned as hot as her blood when the gods moved through her limbs. She picked up her pace and added,

‘Choose for me the ones I will marry.  
Let me not be ashamed on my wedding night.’

Her dance complete, she dropped to the earth, closed her eyes, and listened to the soft swish of wind through tree branches, to the crackle on the hearth. The flames sputtered and went out.

It wasn’t exactly reassuring.

* * *

The City at the Heart of All Things was not merely a city. It was a sprawling verdant valley at the center of the Four Lands, greeted by the river’s path from the northern mountains and the greater river’s path from the western forest. The eastern plains lay to one side of the Heart and spread all the way to the sea where lay the southern isles, an archipelago of thousands of islands nestled in a massive bay. The land between the coast and the heart was inhospitably dry and mountainous, troubled by bandits drawn to rich trade routes carved through the mountain passes.

Once, almost before Eleya could remember, she had traveled the road from the Heart to the convent in the foothills high above. It was hardly the only order of mendicants or monasteries in the Four Lands, nor was it the only convent of its order, but it was where royal children were taken and gifted when priestly blood expressed in their lines. To say nothing of oracles.

Eleya did not remember the great city walls, the well tilled fields around them, the unending stream of people, foreign and domestic. Even with recent Plague, they could hardly be denied. There would be a royal wedding soon.

“You should be arriving with a procession,” the messenger said glumly.

“Nonsense,” Eleya said coldly, a verbal rap across the knuckles as though he were one of the new supplicants. “It’s safer this way.”

‘Who else would be coming?’ she considered. People who knew what had become of the royal house, who thought the Four Lands would be weak, and the new Queen easily killed.

Cold swelled in her chest. Better to take precautions. Better to remain unknown. But who could hide from the gods?


	2. City at the Heart of All Things

There was always the element of balancing political relationships and the intricately woven web of loyalties, rebellions, even small defiances, and having the right lineage in the first place when it came time to evaluate the four royal spouses a new monarch must take.

"The new ruler will be a woman, so we must take men."

"She's allowed any proclivities."

"She was raised in a convent. She was not allowed to have proclivities. Besides, the point of the spouses are to potentially provide heirs satisfactorily of the blood of all four principalities under her rule, without favoring any. Selecting a female spouse would deprive that principality of any potential heirs."

The most bookish of their number, rarely drawn into speech, perked up. “Actually, the point is to provide equal _rulership_ from each of the—”

"The Southern Isles could use depriving," another muttered, shutting the mouth of the first abruptly.

"Spoken as an unlearned resident of the Heart. Are you not a scholar?! Do you not stand counsel to royalty?" the Chief Scholar demanded.

His unwise companion shrank before him. "Of course."

The others remained silent.

"The Northern Wind is far more dangerous, and yet we do not suffer them insult. The Southern Isles bring great wealth to our nation and have thus far missed the Plague. They guard our southern borders and secure a retreat from threats and difficulties that do not visit us so swiftly."

Truly this plague had come from the gods, to claim the sacrifice of the entire First Family of the Royal House to require this particular ruler to come to the throne. It was a terrible omen.

"The last time the gods required a priest king ushered in a dangerous era with foreign intrigues. We must be united in the face of them. I heard the Northern Wind was also devastated through their royal lines."

"Oh?" Their most bookish perked up again, more cautiously.

"The first prince remaining must be the ones the gods have marked. Or whoever survived in the midst of that court. Better if it is the same."

Less room to wonder. Certainty was precious at times like these, when the only certainty that went without saying was that any misstep would have grave consequences.

* * *

The Four Lands had stood together for centuries, united under the molten metal heart of the City at the Heart of All Things. The northern kingdom of fire and wind, the western mountains of forest and ice, the eastern plains of iron and breath, the southern isles of stone and sea.

The King or Queen of the heart married the Princesses and Princes of their lands, uniting metal and fire, ice and breath and stone. This had gone on for centuries and generations, and would for centuries and generations more.

“I’m not the Metal Queen,” Eleya pointed out to her Chief Scholar.

“No,” he agreed. “It is acknowledged that the marriage has led to elements intermingling, and every person may be born with any.” He studied her carefully. “But we must choose your husbands to complement your element.”

She scoffed at him with an openness she could not have imagined taking to the Chief Scholar in all the kingdom before she’d been made Queen. It felt like fire ran up her arms under her skin, and when she spoke, her voice was cold and layered. “Let the gods decide.”

He stared at her openly. Had he never heard an oracle speak?

“The gods have chosen whom they will,” she told him coldly. They had taken by Plague any they deemed unsuited. What more did her counselors need to do?

He lowered his head and bowed. “Yes, my Queen.”

* * *

In the end, that is what they did. They sent to the Principal Houses of the Four Lands and asked they send their first princes of the appropriate lineage. Three were sent. One had already arrived.

* * *

Tanata had served as a loyal guard throughout the entire spread of the fever. He had been the guard of the middle princess of the royal line, and had remained by her side throughout the plague, guarding her against everything but the gods. The gods came and went and took her with them, leaving Tanata.

With little else to do, he took up with the Palace Guard for daily training and companionship and served within their ranks when asked. He may have been of the first line of the Principal House of the Western Mountains, but he was only the second prince. He had chosen years ago to do his duty and serve in the City of the Heart.

Every Principal Household was supposed to send a younger son to the capital to serve in whatever capacity suited them best. These were not generally the sons most likely to be chosen as Prince over all the Four Lands nor as Prince in the land to the Western Mountains, but Tanata’s parents had only brought forth two children, and he assumed one day he would be recalled to serve as Prince in the land. 

He did not expect the Royal Counselors to inform him that his father had offered him to the new Queen. His father wished to keep Tanata’s older brother by his side, who was more familiar with his own land’s ways.

“I am honored, Lord Counselors,” he said slowly, “but it is not fitting.”

They exchanged glances among themselves.

One spoke, “It is a time of great trials from the gods, and you have always been loyal to the Royal House and to your charge in particular.”

“Yes,” he agreed with a slight nod.

“It is for this reason that the Queen has ordered the will of the gods to stand. You have remained here through the Plague and survived when almost all others fell. You are _here_ and your brother, the Prince in the Second Land, is not. Your Highness, you are chosen of the gods as Prince of the realm.”

He had not wished it, never strove for it, nor reached for it in any manner, but he bowed his head in agreement. If the gods demanded and the Queen decreed, what had he to speak against it?

* * *

In his first ten seasons, Caedros was just a child, not a prince, not eligible, barely worthy of instruction as he learned only the basics to all children: how to run, laugh, play, speak, feed himself, and trail after sister or mother with a silent tongue as they did business in their court. In the seasons after, he began to be instructed properly in the ways of the court, given lessons taught to princes, taught to understand his own land and their customs and the laws that governed it. He was a quick learner. By his fortieth season and the tenth annual celebration of his birth, he was declared a worthy eligible member of the Principal Household and a potential marriage partner for the future Queen.

At the time, it meant nothing except that he was to abstain from the attention of women and girls and begin learning the politics and governance of their entire kingdom, not merely the first of the Four Lands, the Northern Wind. It meant nothing because there were cousins and brothers well ahead of him in ranking and skill. He was younger than their seventy to eighty seasons, his voice had not yet deepened, and he still preferred to trail after his sister, the most ferocious and powerful princess his family line had produced in three generations. She taught him how to rule more than any other, and if some thought him too womanly in his manner of command, they did not discover his ire by telling him so.

He was never favored for becoming the Northern Prince in the sacred royal marriage. He was favored for ruling the Northern Wind under the future Prince’s authority, and that was what he trained for in earnest. The lessons toward ruling as the Prince himself were a perfunctory addition.

This was never meant to happen. The gods often chose rulers, deposing or claiming the life of one earlier in the hierarchy. It was understood, and Caedros would not have resented it so fiercely if only his older brothers had died, if only his cousins, if only every eligible male in the line ahead of him had died. He wasn’t a hundred seasons yet and without those remaining years, he would not be chosen as Prince unless there were no other male of his line available.

But his sister.

He cared for her ceaselessly from the moment the Plague glazed over her eyes and shortened her breath. He stayed by her couch and gave her medicines and comfort, read her the stories she’d once read to him. He had no hope for the men who had taken ill and cared less than he dared admit. The gods would claim whom they would, but his sister was not eligible, his sister did not stand in the way of the gods’ will for succession, so surely his sister could be saved.

That is where Mendit found him, beside his sister’s bed in the early morning hours when the entire Principal city around them reeked of illness and death. He had closed her eyes gently, as he had closed their mother’s, their father’s. Now he could not even see the manservant for the tears that filled his own eyes.

“My Prince.”

Not Caedros. Not your Highness. He was alive in the midst of devastation and he had been chosen of the gods to rule.

Never had he hated them more fiercely.

* * *

The First Prince of the Southern Isles was a scholar at heart. His father had successfully forced him to train in the basic arts of governance, diplomacy, and such physical exercises as swordsmanship and riding, but Sahasarel remained a scholar, who preferred to learn all he could about the world through books, the people most others wouldn’t even talk to, and by getting himself into situations and scrapes anyone else would be wise to avoid.

“Scholar?” The captain scoffed and shook his head. “That boy is a menace and has not a lick of the self preservation any other creature was born with!”

“I won’t fall,” Sahasarel called down from his happy perch against the mast, half hanging off the crowsnest instead of being sensibly inside it. If the Prince were to fall, the captain would perhaps not be held liable, but the kingdom would be short another ruler, and the lookout made a point of dragging Sahasarel back to safety.

He was sailing to the coast at last, Sahasarel thought happily. He’d been on the isles his entire life and the only time he’d supposedly visited the mainland was in his infancy, so he had no recollection of the event. Now he’d been summoned to the City of the Heart to meet his future spouses in the Royal Marriage, something that had never quite felt real to him.

There had always been a chance someone else would receive the call, based on the Queen’s element or the loyalty and defiance and _politics_ demonstrated by those from the Court of the Isles. He’d heard the first of a line had been passed over once from the Court of the Wind, but Sahasarel had apparently been deemed acceptable and chosen.

He wondered what they would be like and what it would be like to be married to more than one person. His father, the Prince in the land, said Sahasarel would be joining a harem; his mother merely shook her head, giving his father a warning look that implied such a statement was bad politics. The books all agreed it was a political arrangement devised to ensure the equality of all Four Lands, except those books given to rhetoric or propaganda, where the marriage was described rather mystically.

He was sure the truth was somewhere between all, and he was eager to find out for himself.

* * *

The message that came to the Court of the Plains was simple, and the Principal House wasted no time consulting oracles or counselors. The Prince in the land went out into the courtyard where his eldest son was overseeing the training of new guardsmen, and told him he would leave in the morning for the City of the Heart.

Nirune canted his head obediently and returned to watching the trainees. No one had a better eye for a bad apple than Nirune, so his father left him to it.

* * *

They came to the City at the Heart of All Things, and the palace of the Royal House received them.


	3. Patterns in the Winds

The Northern Prince was about what they’d expected, slight of build and almost delicate in appearance, with fair skin like morning clouds and blue eyes like chinks of sky, narrowed at them in wary distrust. That delicate look, those airy features had always been deceptive, and even the most coddled royalty of the first of the Four Lands had an uncanny ability to survive.

“You have always been loyal to the Crown.”

Never mind that he had always been a member of the Crown, though a lesser one.

“I have,” he said, accent lilting softly over otherwise familiar words. He did not bother to use higher than casually polite speech. While they usually received honorifics and formality, he was royal, about to be Prince in the sacred royal marriage, and they may have been high-ranking members of the Royal Council, but he could speak to them as dogs and only the Queen herself could tell him no.

They did not address it. “Forgive us, Prince. Our land is vulnerable in this time, with so many lost to the gods.”

“Taken,” Caedros said in a low tone. “Taken by the gods.”

This made them tremble. They were hardly words to be spoken, and not at all to a vessel of the gods, devoted to them in her youth.

“The Queen—”

“Did she send you?”

They could yet select another, but no. This was the one whom the gods had marked. They would invite disaster to choose anyone else.

“No, Prince. She is resting in her quarters.”

* * *

The Queen was not resting.

She had rested when she was brought into the capital city, she had rested after being fed as she had been instructed, she had rested and allowed servants to bathe her in the evening as she bit her tongue on many complaints against it.

‘It is not good to be served too readily,’ she had been taught all her life, but Eleya was no longer an oracle cast out from the Royal House. Her blood had come back her, and she struggled to adapt to it.

There had been a certain rhythm to her days. Rise early before the first rays of the sun to sing her prayers and let it find her working to draw water, to cut the morning meal and pour the morning cup, opening her heart to any word that came to her. After the sun, she served those who had come in the night to the convent in need. There would be time yet to go out into the surrounding villages come afternoons after the lessons she taught the youngest girls, not even novitiates yet, merely devoted by their parents to the gods.

There were the members of their order who took seasons for travel and returned to teach during the long summers or the longer winters. Eleya was a winter mendicant and a summer teacher, leaving her available when the royal messenger came to find her.

The palace at the City at the Heart of All Things was of as ancient stone as the convent, though the sun seemed to gleam less warmly and the wind bit with less cold.

She rose early, without thought to what would be expected of her because she knew nothing else. She looked in the wardrobe, full of fine gowns from dead relatives, not yet fitted to her, and closed it again. Eleya found her simple oracle's robe and pulled the rough cloth over her body, tied the rope tight around her waist, wound her wrists with the protective cloths, and took up her staff as though she still had the right to it.

Once devoted to the gods, one could not simply be taken back again.

She went out into the courtyard like that and settled with the solid ancient wall of the palace against her back to watch the guards at their training.

One of the pairs in particular caught her eye, and she watched them for a while as they crossed swords with no small skill, their strokes swift and sure. It was pleasant to watch them, as pleasant as watching her sisters in the dance when they lifted their staves before the gods.

“That is Tanata of the Western Mountains, my Queen,” said the softspoken guardswoman materializing at Eleya’s side. “And Bastos of the Eastern Plains.”

“You are faithful,” said Eleya. She thought she had left the bodyguard behind.

The woman only inclined her head. “I have devoted myself in service.”

Eleya felt the pang of such a declaration. She had once done the same. Or been devoted, not that the difference mattered a great deal to a girl of sixteen seasons.

One guard struck the other sharply, and Tanata drew back, with a hiss, bright blood spattering on the ground between them. They saluted each other and parted. A spar to first blood then. Eleya had seen such before.

She approached the bench where Tanata dropped, cradling his sliced hand, and ignored the shadowed footsteps of her guard behind her. “Will you?” Eleya asked, hand outstretched, oracle sigils visible upon her arms.

He saw them, warm brown eyes widening slightly, and nodded shortly, holding out his hand for her to her clean and knit the wound closed with a soft humming tune to the gods.

“Anessa,” he nodded at her bodyguard.

Anessa nodded back. “This is the prince of the first line, my Queen,” she added softly.

Eleya’s hand froze on Tanata’s. Tanata’s face startled almost blank.

“My Queen,” he said abruptly, recovering himself enough to incline his head to one of higher rank, not an equal, not an oracle.

Eleya almost regretted it, almost chided Anessa for the interference, but she couldn’t because she too had benefited from the revelation to know that this was one of the men she would marry.

He was among the Guard. “Be careful whom you fight,” Eleya said. She finished tying off the small bandage and released him. He was not just a guard now but a Prince of the realm.

“My Queen.”

There was something in his tone, question or protest, _something_ , and she found the words welling up again on a burning wave of heat. She spoke again with the layered voice of an oracle. “Be careful, Prince, whom you take swords against.”

He stared at her. He knew the sound of the gods on her tongue, had heard an oracle before, with the way his expression shifted to resigned, to understanding, to dutiful. He bowed his head before her. “Yes, my Queen.”

It was pleasant in the courtyard and she fell to watching the guardsmen train. Tanata did not leave her, and it only occurred to her much later that perhaps it was because she had not dismissed him. There were points of royal etiquette she’d never had need to acquire before. When she had questions, he would answer simply and clearly. It was a pleasant way to pass the morning.

“You seem loyal,” she noted. “Few remained through the entire Plague at the threat of their own lives.”

“How do you know I did, my Queen?”

“You’ve not just arrived.”

And he hadn’t. He was as comfortable here as the Swordsmaster training new recruits in the corner of the yard. He only shot her a puzzled glance but acknowledged the truth of it with a gesture.

Eleya could hardly help falling into her own habits of picking patterns from the winds, the leaves, the clash of wood and steel around them, the stance and steps of each person near, the way their eyes spoke, and she turned to Tanata in surprise as she realized the difference in the quality of his appreciation as he looked at her or the women fighting as opposed to the men. It was a subtle thing but blatantly present in the patterns he wore.

“You’re not particularly attracted to women,” she said, only a faint hint of questioning in it. It was an observation rather.

He stiffened and set his jaw firmly. “I am loyal, my Queen.”

Eleya frowned, not understanding his meaning at all. “I know,” she said.

Tanata opened his mouth, shut it, tried again. “I know my duty to the marriage bed.”

Eleya felt the blood rush to her cheeks and opened her own mouth before shutting it. She had little deference in her body, but to discuss sex so brazenly with her own future spouse was somewhat outside of she had intended. She sighed and set herself to it. “I’m sure we both do,” she answered ruefully and was surprised to see him smile.

“It can’t have been something you’d planned for,” he commented, casually, in a manner not requiring an answer.

“You’ll not be required to offer duty to me but once,” she added. “Nor I to you.”

“I cannot take a lover, my Queen.”

Eleya stared at him. Lovers were not unheard of in the noble ranks, though it was said the gods frowned on those who were married taking them, and would show their displeasure to a member of the royal marriage who did so. But surely, Tanata didn’t think he would have no options. “Are all men so dense? You will have three husbands.”

He seemed taken aback. _“You_ will have three husbands.”

“Four actually,” including Tanata, “but it doesn’t work like that. It is one marriage,” she reminded him. “I’m sure at least one of them will be amenable.”

The bodyguard coughed lightly behind Eleya, a gentle warning that she had crossed the bounds of propriety at last.

Eleya sighed and rose to her feet as Tanata rose with her.

“I apologize. It grows late,” she offered, a polite excuse allowing an end to their interchange. “May the gods smile on your afternoon.”

He looked at her oddly.

She wondered why it would puzzle him, then decided it must have been the greeting of an oracle and not a common greeting as she expected.

“And on yours,” he replied.

Though it was sincere, it wasn’t the right answer, and she was surprised to find that hurt.

* * *

She went in to lunch that would be served to her, made for her, that others would clean up after, and thought to herself that Tanata was firm and strong and the roots of his duty had grown deep.

The Stone Prince. Typically, it was the blood of the South associated with stone, and she had once been called a stone daughter, for her own mother was born of the Isles.

Eleya did not know her own element. She knew that the fire of the gods had taken root in her arteries, that the breath of their dances sang in her flesh, and the ice of their words had glowed on her tongue. She was not the Metal Queen, though she’d been born in the Heart. She was not the Stone Queen. Though her mother was of the Isles, her mother was not of stone and neither was Eleya. All of her ice and fire and breath came straight from the gods and not her own body.

Her arms itched to dance, but she quelled their hunger and entered the dining hall where she would slake a more physical thirst.

“The Princes have arrived, my Queen,” said the Chief Scholar. “Would you like them to join you?”

She stared at him, considered her state of dress, her blunders earlier, and shook her head, drawing her composure back around herself again. “Perhaps at dinner.”

* * *

After lunch, she located the library and set herself to the many piles of books left her by her counselors—ledgers of the kingdom’s state of affairs, minutes of the many gatherings of council, statistics of those taken in the Plague. She frowned over patterns and listened to the silence of gently shifting leaves in the wind outside the open windows.

This work was new to her, but if she would be made ruler, then she must prepare herself to rule and surround herself with wiser minds than her own, with strong husbands to rule their own lands, and never forget to obey whatever the gods might speak through her.

She would be Queen. The idea was difficult to wrap her mind around. She needed to absorb different details from the books before her than she would have if she had been merely an oracle in the Royal House, a path she’d rejected only because it would draw her too close again to her former life. Perhaps she had been hasty. Perhaps the gods would not have taken everything if…

Eleya sighed and leaned back her head to banish the idle, distracted thoughts from her mind.

That is where she was when Caedros found her.

The royal bodyguard beside the desk and the clothes her maidservants had dressed her in made it clear who she was, and he had barely entered the room before he bowed before her and seemed about to withdraw.

But he was also clearly of the Northern Wind, dressed still in the manner of his land, his indifferent formality to any but her an indication of high rank. If he was not the Prince, he had arrived with the Prince, but there was no doubt in her mind who he was.

“You don’t have to go,” she said. “There’s room for two to be in here.”

He paused, eyes so startling blue as he followed the path of her sigils, still visible even in the proper dress. For a moment, Eleya wondered if she should wear sleeved gowns, but it was summer and she had no wish to hide herself.

Instead, she answered warily his unspoken question, “I am an oracle of the Order of the Beloved of the Gods.”

“You speak for them?” he asked, gaze rising again to her face.

She shrugged. “When they choose to occupy my tongue. Otherwise, no.”

Something complicated filled out the tensions surrounding him, as if a bright flare of fury and a sigh of relief comingled in his reaction.

She kept her head up, feeling the desire to understand what it was she sensed. “Are you the Prince?”

“Of the Northern Wind,” he supplied. “My name is Caedros.”

“Eleya,” she answered back.

“The Queen?” he asked, politeness to a superior in the way he said it.

She hesitated, then acknowledged, “Yes, they have made me queen.”

An odd look in his eye again mixed emotions, as if perhaps he understood her but resented her all the same.

“I suppose I represent unpleasantness to you,” she offered.

The grim way he frowned indicated she had guessed correctly. “You represent the gods.”

“And yet, I am also at their mercy.” She rested her chin on her hand. “It is not wise to grow angry with the gods.”

“They are capricious,” Caedros said, “but do not tolerate it in their worshippers.”

She didn’t like the taste of that. It was odd how she couldn’t put her finger on it. Caedros could have been fire, could have been ice. His resentment had not yet cooled to smoldering embers, but there was a certain coldness to his voice and demeanor and patterns that told her he would not be so easy to forge friendship with as Tanata, who did not resent being tied to a wife even when he had no desire for one.

Eleya chose her words carefully, and if they came from a lifetime of training in such matters, so be it. “The gods are not capricious,” she said slowly. “They do not follow our ways.” And she knew their ways. She knew why it was little comfort to their people that the gods should consistently follow their own.

“You are saying it was not caprice that my sister is dead?” He leaned against a bookcase, an interested look on his face. He was resentful but not of her personally. She was merely a welcome and convenient object for the anger he could not safely direct at its true target.

Even so, a bitter heat rose up in her own words at those. “At least you were the last of your line, not your entire house.”

There were still princes and princesses of the Northern Wind, even within the direct line from previous rulers. The only princes and princesses of the Heart that remained were of secondary lines from siblings and cousins of the direct lineage. No one would take back a sacrifice to the gods when there was any other option considered better, of either gender.

But Caedros clearly knew which royal daughter she was. “I knew them all. I was raised with them,” he said. His voice was even but his eyes held such cold anger.

He thought her loss not personal.

“You think because I was sent away at a young age that I did not have reason to care?” Eleya felt her arms burning, her eyes stinging, but no cold words in her throat. This anger was her own. “Everyone I have even remembered loving is dead,” she said. “This does not please me.”

They understood each other, but they could not say they liked each other.

* * *

Dinner was not a pleasurable affair, though it was not a complete disaster. She was struck favorably by the eager interest of Sahasarel of the Southern Isles in everything different about the City from his own homeland. Sahasarel was eminently Southern, straight as an arrow with burnished skin and long dark hair, only hers was braided in the manner of an oracle and Sahasarel's was tied back simply in the manner of the Isles. Tanata turned out to be an enjoyable conversationalist, offering answers and details to Sahasarel and the occasional warning when appropriate. Nirune of the Eastern Plains was quiet almost to a fault, but he seemed to miss nothing. Caedros was polite and had plenty of stories to keep Sahasarel occupied.

For herself, Eleya became as quiet as Nirune, listening and sensing the swirling patterns around her. They had yet to coalesce into a single weave between people who would bind their lives together.

Their journeys to the Heart had been uneventful, the weather was not cursed by the gods, and only her House and Caedros’ had fallen to the Plague. The other Houses were respectful but did not share their upheaval.

They were all strangers, and she was strange to this life and the task of ruling. She excused herself at the end of the meal without staying to socialize further as she should.

Instead, she passed through the antechambers to her rooms, ordered the maidservants to stay in the antechambers, clambered out of a dress too complicated for her, and curled up in the bottom of the wardrobe like it was a prayer closet and finally wept for all the things she could never change.


	4. Consummation of the First Land

The Queen’s bedchamber was opened and aired through the day as the servants cleansed it from top to bottom. The Queen herself was not allowed within during the process. Eleya tried to occupy herself by moving upward through the castle’s once familiar halls towards a destination she could not remember.

So much of this long-lost home was utterly forgotten to her.

“My Queen.” The Prince of the Southern Isles looked startled, dark eyes widening, even darker finer hair than hers blowing loosely in the wind that wound through this tower’s open windows.

Eleya gestured for him to continue as he was and sat beside the window. _This_ place stirred memory within her. The view of the castle environs below, the soft cat purring in a sunny corner, the sparse furnishings of the observatory. It wasn’t the same cat, but somehow she knew there had always been one here.

After a moment, the prince, Sahasarel, relaxed again.

“The consummation of the First Land is tonight.”

He turned toward her, caution in his movements and expression. “Yes, my Queen.”

“We will be married properly.” She looked back.

Sahasarel, of all the princes, seemed the least weary, of duty, the gods, death, and least experienced in the ways of men and women who were to be married. Other than Eleya herself of course. She could hardly be expected to become very experienced in such things spending nearly one hundred and fifteen seasons in chastity she’d anticipated being permanent.

He looked at her with those soft wide open eyes that always seemed so innocent and welcoming. “Yes, my Queen.”

“Does it bother you?” she asked candidly, more candidly than could ever be considered proper. But oracles were trained in etiquette of a different nature than most. They were the only ones allowed so many liberties with politeness.

But Sahasarel only shook his head. “I was raised with the understanding I might marry the Queen one day.”

She paused and tasted that, considered a girl in her sixteenth season delivered screaming from her mother’s warm arms to the cold welcome of the convent. She had found belonging there in time, found it not so cold, even burned with not unwelcome heat when the sigils ran down her arms and gods opened her mouth to speak their cold, layered voices over hers.

The question bubbled up despite herself. “Did you ever have a choice?”

He seemed surprised, but surprisingly free of bitterness when he answered, “No.”

* * *

By the time evening fell, she had been returned to the chambers of the First Princess, not those of the Queen. They bathed her in warm baths and cool, dried her skin and perfumed it. She shivered more from the unfamiliar floral scent permeating her skin than from the coolness of the evening air. She had not been raised with finery.

“My Queen,” the maidservants murmured, and she let them do as they asked, let them stretch and comb out her hair and weave gold thread into her braid. She let them bind her waist and privates with soft garments, then slip a soft undergown over the top and pluck at the lace until it sat right. She let them pull an overdress of green and gold and white over her head and shoulders and arrange it against her body until she looked like one of the fine ladies of the Royal House she’d never been allowed to become.

They trimmed her nails and softened her skin with oil, smoothed over her complexion with powders, colored her lips with the simplest, most innocent of shades, the one nearest her own.

“What is it like,” she asked them, for she knew no one else to ask, “to lie with a man?”

The maids exchanged glances, but the eldest sat down opposite her and took her hand. “It will be your first time. You must be patient. It might not be pleasant.”

“But it might be,” lilted the voice of the one straightening Eleya’s hem. “Best lay I ever had was new to the whole thing, but teachable.”

“I cannot teach him anything,” Eleya said quietly, her eyes dropping to study that hem and the gold slippers another maid had brought her to wear.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said the younger one. Younger than the first, but not young as Eleya. “No one knows your body but you.”

She asked more questions. They gave answers. Her whole body trembled with nerves she had not felt before. It wasn’t like the Prince of the Northern Wind actually wanted her at all.

* * *

The room was not so much changed. It was clean and beautiful, more adorned than it had been before. Incense filled the room with scent, the hearth blazed with fire, and light glowed from sconces along the all. The bed was without coverlet, only sheets beneath where they would lie down, and there was a large space on one side for their other spouses to stand witness. A small ornate jar on the nightstand held oil.

It was warm in the room, almost too warm for the dress she wore, and certainly pleasant along the exposed parts of her skin. Her hair began to cling to her neck at her nape. There was a reason for all this, that all members of the royal marriage were obligated to take part in each land’s consummation, that they would be accountable in each other’s eyes and not just to the examiners who would later view the unwashed bedding.

It could all be embarrassing to Eleya if she allowed it, but she had been bathing naked with her sisters from their cold cistern, and while modesty was a required virtue, she had never been raised with or among men to develop a shyness toward them. Even so, she had never been naked before a man, and no one had ever prepared her to marry one, let alone four.

Sahasarel of the Southern Isles, Nirune of the Eastern Plains, and Tanata of the Western Mountains had arrived a little before her and gathered near the hearth where it was clearly set with chairs and comfortable leaning spots should someone prefer to stand. She waited a moment in the center of the room, taking a moment to look at them before everything that would follow. Sahasarel persisted in seeming so innocent to her eyes, talking lightly with the other two but no tension in his body or more than a friendly smile when she had entered. Nirune remained quiet and withdrawn, a mystery to her, firelight glinting off his auburn hair, his seat well positioned to miss nothing and but saying little. Tanata was as practical and levelheaded as ever in his conversation, but he looked at her with knowing eyes. He was not so nervous as she, but he was quite as aware of their purpose for being here.

Caedros entered without her noticing. He was not there, then he was, beautiful as ever, features almost too fine for a man’s and his face was set with determination if not pleasure.

He paused when he reached her, the first look of softness she thought she had seen in his eyes. “This is your first time.”

But she only raised her eyebrows. “From what I understand, we should all be virgins,” she reminded him. As soon as the future heir was set, those eligible of the opposite gender in the Principal Houses were obliged to abstain from relations until it was known whether they would be chosen for the royal marriage.

Caedros shrugged. She followed the shift of his cloak with her eyes. “The eligible princes of their house may not lie with women until the royal marriage has been made.”

It gave her pause. It was quite specific. “And you kept the law as stated?”

Sahasarel looked confused at the question, but Nirune looked up sharply. Tanata was very quiet. It was no secret to her that Tanata preferred men in the first place.

“The Northern Wind keeps the traditions and laws of the Principal Houses,” Caedros answered, sidestepping the particulars but clear enough. It wasn’t his first time in someone else’s bed, only in hers.

“Would you like me to call up one of the others to share our bed?” she asked slowly. Maybe it would be easier if there was another man, as he was used to, but he shook his head.

“We do this as tradition states. We keep the traditions and laws of the Principal Houses.”

Eleya felt the patterns in his words, the set of his jaw. Tradition meant something to him, beyond merely the requirements set upon the principalities to follow it. “Very well,” she agreed.

There was nothing more to wait for, to talk about. She let down the thick braid of her dark hair until it fell like a curtain between her and the sight of her many husbands. But there she stopped. It was not her place to undress herself.

It was Nirune who gently but deftly unfastened her overdress as her heart beat too quickly and his fingers were rough where they met her skin. If he was a scholarly prince, he must always be found with a pen in his hand, but she suspected he was more a prince who worked among his people, who served them.

He removed the soft undergown and she found her face heating under his gaze and the way Sahasarel turned his own face away with a blush. Not just from her but from Caedros. Tanata had finished undressing the Prince of the Northern Wind and they both stood bare before their husbands.

She found her voice then. “You should look, Sahasarel. He is your husband, not only mine. I am your wife, not only his.”

Caedros looked at her as the other two withdrew, and she found while she was aware of the three besides, she could not break gaze with the prince of the First Land nor the way he seemed to breathe a little more shallowly as he took in her body. She wasn’t especially beautiful, not slender or delicate or without blemish or scar, but she was not ugly either, merely plain. Yet he seemed to not find her wanting.

Caedros, though, was as beautiful as his face. It was clear in his body that he was as active as Sahasarel was scholarly and he moved with grace and poise she could only ever find when she was dancing.

She sat on the bed and he gently laid her back. He didn’t want her or love her, but he was a man and she was a woman and they were married, so he touched her and let her run her own hands over his shoulders as he kissed her with a warmth that made her melt.

She was naked and he was touching her, palm warm against her hip, leg brushing up against the inside of hers, his neck under her own hand, responding as she drew him closer.

Sahasarel made a small noise of surprise, as if he’d discovered arousal as surely as she just had, and Caedros drew back startled. He pressed a kiss to Eleya’s shoulder and she couldn’t help but think it was an excuse to hide his face from those watching.

“Do you like being the center of attention?” she whispered against the side of his face.

A shudder ran through his whole body. “I do not.”

What an unusual trait for a prince. “You seem young,” she commented. It was barely fair. She was older than she ought to be for the marriage of the royal heir, though not for becoming queen, and she already knew he wasn’t quite of the age considered appropriate to become ruling prince, but he was definitely an adult.

He pulled his head up to look at her, amused and huffy in equal measure, not so self conscious. “I’m not so young as I look.”

“What? Are you a hundred seasons old?” she asked, raising another eyebrow.

“Not quite a hundred,” he admitted. A faint red flush spread across his cheeks. 

Oh. She hadn’t expected it, nor the sudden rush of heat through her chest. She wanted to see that flush chase down his limbs and she pressed her own face to his shoulder, hands running down the strength in his arms. “You are beautiful,” she said softly. She peeked up from his skin to see his face.

His eyes widened in surprise, seeming bluer and brighter, then his blush dulled and she could see wariness gleaming in his eyes, but he did not stop touching her, running fingers warm over her breast, making her breath catch in her lungs. Untrusting of compliments, but generous in return.

It was easy to get lost in the heat of his breath on her shoulder, her neck, the warm pressure of his kisses. She turned her head to grant him better access and saw her other husbands, accidentally locking gazes with Nirune, who stared back with such intensity, she felt like he could feel her patterns as an oracle, feel what she was feeling, missing nothing of the sensations incited by Caedros' hand on her thigh, his mouth on her collarbone, his fingers sparking pain and pleasure as he teased her nipple. It made her face heat and a sudden nervous flutter settle in her belly as she squirmed beneath each touch of Caedros’ skin, everywhere Nirune’s gaze wandered. She could just see Sahasarel staring as if he could not bear to look away.

She could understand the urge to look elsewhere. She closed her eyes for just a moment to feel the heat sparking in her body before opening her eyes and urging Caedros to his back so she could press her own hands to his skin, straddle him between her legs, and feel his hardness and strength beneath her as they moved. He let her take the top, a sharp grin on his face, hands pressed down on her thighs. 

She had seen a cock bare before but not erect, and seeing his standing upright, flushed and damp, made her want to touch and maybe even taste. Her cheeks burned, her sigils were cool, and she leaned down to take what kisses she could as she copied Caedros’ hands from earlier. He traced shivery, meaningless patterns on her hips, holding her as she touched his neck, his shoulders, traced over his chest and teased as he had her, then groaned when his fingers slipped between her legs. She ran her hand gently over his cock, studying the signs of pleasure on his face, then gripped more firmly and watched him bite his lip with a soft hiss.

His fingers were inside her, feeling her out in ways that made her skin burn with want and hunger for more. She tried moving her own up and down his shaft, and for a second, his face contorted with pleasure, then he pulled out to cover her hand with his and guide her in how to do it. A firmer grip, more sureness in his touch until it bled over into hers.

“If you want to do it this way,” he said, “use the oil.”

Eleya drew back, hands falling to his hips as she straightened. “How am I supposed to do it?” she asked with a frown. This way, that way. Even after asking dozens of questions about sex, she didn’t know nearly enough.

Caedros gripped her hips then and adjusted her position above him. He ran one hand down over her pelvis and the inside of her thigh again, provoking a whimper she couldn’t hold back, then guided her over him slowly.

“Oh,” she breathed, without any real words for the feeling of him pushing inside with his cock and not his hands, of the fullness stretching her open. She pressed both hands to his chest and slowed them even further.

He let her, following her pace until finally he was fully inside her, flushed red and a look of desire in his eyes.

The slightest rock of their hips set off a wave of sensation, discomfort mingled with pleasure. “Wait, stop,” she whispered, a shudder running through her.

There were his hands on her hips again, hot and firm, holding her still.

She opened her mouth against his skin to taste against the line of his neck and shoulder. When she lifted her head, a flush had bloomed across his cheeks and ran down almost to his chest.

She waited for the feeling of their joining to not be so thick and awkward, until she was warm and full and it felt good with him inside her. “Caedros,” she whispered, fingers curling, and he seemed to hear her unspoken question and moved, rocking gently up into her, setting off ripples of pleasure.

“May we come closer?”

She had not expected the question, and it almost startled her. It was Sahasarel’s voice, and she swallowed at the idea of it, of him coming closer with that fascinated expression he so often wore, his exploratory nature being applied to her and Caedros in this moment.

Caedros had said nothing, and when her eyes moved to his, he seemed to be waiting without expression, but for the edge of tension in his face, the soft way each breath panted out of him. She tucked her fingers into his hair and he suddenly met her gaze with sharp focus, then realizing what she was asking him, his eyes widened and cheeks flushed pink. He glanced away to one side, but he did not deny her.

After a long moment, she answered, “Yes.”

She did not like to be the center of attention, she decided, but this, the weight of her husband’s gazes heavy upon her; this, the shivery sensation of being watched by them; and this, the heat sparking in her belly with the weight of Caedros hands, every minute shift within her, the taste of each kiss he bestowed on her: this she liked very much.

Their rocking motion went on for minutes more, his fingers sliding over her skin like bright flames of heat. He thrust in harder, sharper, and she gasped at the radiating pleasure, her breath caught on a whimper. He stared at her like seeing her for the first time.

“My Queen,” he said, voice rougher and softer than she’d heard it before, as if all this was fraying at his edges like it was hers.

Even so, she corrected him. “Eleya. In my bed, call me Eleya, not queen.”

But the brief moment of openness vanished from his eyes. “Not everyone wants such intimacies.”

She stared at him, gritted her teeth, and ground down against him, punching a startled breath out of his mouth. “Then call me nothing,” she said.

And he didn’t. They exchanged no more words as their pace grew frenetic and their movements jerky. She could see the need in his eyes and the want in that of her other husbands', Tanata watching Caedros as if he could hardly help himself and wished he could, Nirune watching her with the same sense of intent observation he'd displayed earlier, saying nothing and reacting little, and Sahasarel watching them both with the fascination she’d expected, following every slide of hands, every snap of hips, and fixing themselves on Caedros’ face when he hit his climax.

She felt the wet heat filling her with his release and hid her face and muffled groan against his neck. His fingers were still on her, just above where their bodies met, and then he found her clit and she cried out, helpless against the tide of pleasure that washed through her, leaving her shaking behind it as it ebbed.

When the euphoria faded, she became aware of how hot and damp with sweat her skin was, almost dripping under her hair, and the strange sticky sensation of his semen on her thighs as he withdrew. She felt the sudden ache of emptiness without him and a sort of boneless limp feeling that she’d thought physical exertion no longer gave her.

Being undressed before them, by them, had been one sort of feeling of vulnerability, but she found it disconcerting as she blushed, shuddering, at the sensation of Tanata gently washing her down with a cloth, pulling her forward and holding her hair to get her back and nape, swiping over her ribs and belly and under her breasts, gently lingering between her legs where the mess was worst. She wanted to shut her eyes against it, but she had never shut her eyes against anything since she became an actual oracle in truth not merely training, and she studied her husband as he worked, tucking her fingers in against his hair.

It didn’t light a fire in her belly like when Nirune had slid her clothes slowly from her body, but that was probably a good thing. Tanata wasn’t looking at her like Nirune had. Even so, it was intimate in a way difficult to ignore.

She turned her head to watch Sahasarel washing Caedros, sneaking peeks at Tanata every so often as if he’d never done such a thing before and wanted to get it right. It was endearing. Caedros’ face held a soft expression that seemed to agree.

“Sleep now,” Nirune said quietly as he drew the thick coverlet over them that had been absent before. His voice was low and deep, and Eleya shivered in its warmth.

She closed her eyes and slept.

* * *

Eleya had long been used to rising early, before the sun, that she may begin her duties before it found her. Tendrils of sunlight had curled around the edges of the heavy curtains and cast their glow on the bed by the time she opened her eyes.

She’d never in her memory woken up so warm, tucked into Caedros’ arms, his breath hot against her temple. She pulled back enough to prop herself up on one elbow beside him and look at his sleeping face. He looked as relaxed as she felt, her body unable to grasp its usual tension, his face finally free of that resentful, if well hidden grief.

His eyelashes fluttered softly and she stared at it, fascinated, then his eyes came open and focused on her.

“We should get up,” she said quietly, as much to herself as to Caedros.

He gave off the impression of faint puzzlement with a slight shift of his brows, then amusement in the quirk of his mouth. “It isn’t wrong for the sun to find you sleeping,” he said just as quietly.

“The sun prefers to look upon an industrious people,” she said absently. It took no thought to repeat the mantra of years.

“A people yes,” he agreed easily and that made her listen to the rest. “Not a particular person.”

For a moment, Eleya considered it, then she slipped out of his arms and out of the bed and didn’t listen so closely to the sigh that followed her.

She couldn’t reach for her oracle clothing this morning, and she tried sorting through the ridiculous pile of underclothes. How many pieces of white fluff was one woman supposed to wear? Her maidservants had put it all on her the first time, and she’d been too distracted by her nervousness to consider learning how it was done.

By the time she’d gotten to frowning at the undergown and overdress, Caedros was fully dressed. He put one hand to her shoulder in a brief, gentle touch. “Here.” He deftly pulled the clothes over her limbs and arranged them, fastening ties at her back with an ease that made her wonder if he’d been truthful about never sleeping with women before.

“You’re quite skilled,” she said evenly, ruthlessly suppressing any bite from her voice.

Caedros’ fingers paused. He smoothed out the last bit of collar with thoughtful slowness. “I was my sister’s favorite sibling,” he said at last. “She’d have me help her with this part.”

“Not servants?” Eleya turned. He had much more understanding of this world she’d found herself in, but she thought the servants universal.

He smiled, but there was no pleasure in the smile. “My sister was favored to rule the land. She preferred to keep the servants to a minimum.”

It hadn’t saved her.

Eleya nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

There was no hostility in the way he put a hand to the small of her back to lead her toward the doors and soon after breakfast. “Shall we?”


	5. The Second and Third Lands

Tanata rose early most mornings, except on the rare annual holidays he’d always been granted leave for. He’d been trained in the Guard since he was a young boy, newly arrived from the mountains. One didn’t laze around in bed or in the courtyard. Too young to fight, there were errands to run, messages to carry, armor and weapons to polish and care for. Too old to scramble about, there was training and light duty shifts until the day there was the strength to stand in the Guard.

He tried not to think about the night ahead of him, even knowing that this gentle reprieve in the mornings when he could remain in his old life, would soon be gone. Right now, he still looked like a bodyguard with his dark fitted leather armor and short hair cut same as anyone else. People hadn’t seen him hold audiences, nor stand in the Court of the Heart, so they did not know his change in station.

He breathed deep of the morning breezes, in, out, hoping for serenity to return to his steps within his chosen duty as it always had.

That’s where Nirune found him, studying him with an intensity that made Tanata think of the sun beating down from the sky, inescapable and palpable. He was all angles and sharp lines, sturdy where Sahasarel was fine-featured, hair longer than Tanata’s but short in the manner of those of the middle lands. With his quiet manner, he should have been invisible; instead he stood out for reasons inexplicable.

“Come, spar,” Tanata said, in lieu of a proper greeting.

It was easier than asking Nirune what it was he saw when he studied them so closely, saying nothing at all. It was easy to understand Caedros, who radiated grief and anger in the wake of the loss of his line. It was easier still to understand Sahasarel who had been so sheltered in the hope of shepherding him alive to this day that he resembled nothing more than an eager young recruit, blind to the pain waiting in the life ahead. 

Nirune was silent yet present in a way that didn’t quite speak of the watchfulness of the Guard or of holding vigil, and Tanata did not find understanding nearly so simple.

Nirune looked at him for a moment, seeming almost puzzled, then took up a training sword from its place among the equipment and breathed in properly as if he’d been trained to this from his thirtieth season or sooner. Perhaps he had.

His stance was solid and when Tanata circled him warily, Nirune moved with him.

They sparred. It was a revelation, that he and Nirune could be so in tune with each other. Neither won nor lost, they simply brought steel against steel, blade against blade, pitting body and strength and strategy against the other to find a perfect equal. It brought warm pleasure in Tanata’s heart, something that felt natural and right in the middle of everything that didn’t.

When he pulled back from the fight, he found he was grinning. When he looked at Nirune’s face, he found his pleasure mirrored there.

* * *

The second night, Eleya was more sensitive to the presence of her husbands, sharp nervousness in her throat when she realized who she would be consummating with, and yet the familiarity of having already braved the bed once for such purposes made it seem an easier task than the first time.

Right before Caedros gently tugged on the shoulder of her gown, and she remembered the feel of him inside her even as he removed her clothes. The slide of cloth felt heavy and significant, and it didn’t matter that she told herself, it was Tanata she would be with tonight and Tanata had no real interest in her body, the other three had shown interest and being naked before them no longer felt innocent.

Sahasarel withdrew with Tanata’s clothes right as Caedros let her go. They joined Nirune near the fire where they’d started the evening last night.

Tanata looked very dutiful, and Eleya felt very dutiful because she couldn’t imagine any other reason to be sleeping with a man so visibly unattracted to her.

“My Queen.” He was looking at her with a questioning expression on his face, as if he could feel her reluctance to go on.

It was Caedros who spoke up first. “You could try rubbing off most of the way if you want to make it quick.”

Rubbing off. Eleya felt herself flush and only worse when she saw the interested look on Nirune’s face.

“It’s not difficult,” Nirune commented, humor underlying his voice.

“Of course not.” She said the words as if she meant them and tried to remember what Caedros had liked before he redirected her to a proper joining.

It was quick and efficient, Tanata largely taking over using the oil and bringing himself to an aroused state. She rode him, but as he held her, he looked over her shoulder toward their husbands, and it was enough when she felt him shudder and spill inside her without seeking her own pleasure from the experience.

It was Sahasarel and Nirune that washed them and Caedros that pulled the blanket over their bed.

“I’ve had worse,” Tanata said quietly when they’d gone.

She could not help but laugh softly under her breath.

* * *

It was both easier and harder with Sahasarel. He was eager and curious and Eleya let him try all the things he’d watched and all the things he’d apparently read.

“There are books about this?” She stared at him bewildered.

There was definitely snickering from someone near the fire. She almost glared at them, but the effect was somewhat ruined by her sudden gasp at Sahasarel’s tongue entering her. She lay back and let him pleasure her, since he seemed to want to do it, and certainly she had few complaints.

* * *

“I’m getting far more cleaning up than the rest of you,” Eleya noted as Nirune ran the cloth over her skin. While each received care, she was the one constant in their bed.

For the first time since this began, it bothered her.

“You’re the Queen,” Sahasarel pointed out lightly.

“This is one marriage. Four lands and one heart.” Words that belonged to the royal marriage and the royal house. “It is not good to receive too much service from others.” Words she’d kept all her life.

“The Queen receives the service of all,” Tanata reminded her.

“And the Queen also serves all,” Nirune said. “You will not serve less now that you are no longer devoted to the gods.”

She stared, taken aback. Is that what they thought? “You cannot take back what has been given to the gods. Would they destroy all of the Four Lands for my sake and not just my House?” Real fear burned beneath her skin.

Caedros’ head came up sharply, gaze meeting hers.

“I can’t—” She shuddered and turned her head, forcing herself to still, back straight. “I’m sorry.” She was the Queen. It was her duty to be the strength, not to take her strength from others.

But she was startled by Nirune settling his hand at her hip, holding her with a light touch and drawing her face up to his. “It is right that you speak of these things with us and not your servants.”

Caedros stared, stood, and went to stand by the window, looking out. Firelight flickered in dance across his back.

“You are the bedrock of your lands,” she whispered. “It is your place to be the strength for them.” Not for me.

“Who better for you to be human with than with the princes who are your husbands and who rule beside you?” Nirune persisted. His hand was gentle on her face, but he spoke with all the authority as if he were the oracle and she the seeker.

“Why are the gods so cruel even to you?” Caedros asked suddenly. His gaze seemed to burn into her. “To do this to you and to take all of our families, your house and my line?”

She understood his pain, but she could not agree with it, even now. “Because we have demanded they care for and secure our lands, and for this they assume we are willing to pay the cost of that.”

“But my sister? She had nothing to do with the succession.” Frustration furrowed his brows and cracked his voice. “Why?”

She could feel it there, shimmering in the cold and silence beyond, sigils warming without burning. Not yet. “Do you want me to dance as oracle for you?”

His eyes widened, horror dawning in his face. “No.” He shook his head. “Let their cold words speak through any mouth but yours.”

She could not blame him, even as she released the patterns of gathering power. It was bad enough he saw her and saw the gods, let her not speak an answer concerning his heart that he would be unwilling to hear.

“I am sorry,” she said. Not because she could have helped him, but because she could not. No one could have changed what the gods had decided to do.

* * *

Sahasarel could usually be found in the library, when he wasn’t climbing to inadvisable heights in his insatiable desire to explore. Caedros had always preferred to retreat to libraries when he wanted to be alone, burying himself in work or study or even a pleasant hour’s respite with the literature and poetry of his own land, but Sahasarel had put paid to that idea, and Caedros couldn’t even resent it due to his irrepressibly cheerful nature.

Where Tanata’s acceptance of what the gods had willed for him made Caedros avoid conversation, Sahasarel was simply too eager and pleased with all of them for Caedros to resent him for petty reasons or just ones.

“I take it you’re discovering more exciting things,” Caedros offered as he dropped into one of the plush library chairs with a slim volume of mountain poetry. He wouldn’t get any work done punctuated by Sahasarel’s frequent exclamations of delight, nor was it really his duty to accomplish real work until the marriage with the Queen had been fully consummated. For a few days anyway, he could try to drown out the bite of grief gnawing at his throat and stomach with pleasant verses or companionship.

Sahasarel’s dark head popped up over the teetering pile of books he’d been perusing. “There are some books on shipbuilding I never saw in the Isles.”

Caedros hmmed thoughtfully. “I don’t know I’d trust them more.”

“Perhaps not, but—” Sahasarel went on for a little bit longer, things Caedros knew nothing about and could barely understand, but he understood the excitement gleaming in Sahasarel’s dark eyes, and the way his hands moved enthusiastically in tune with his words.

“Caedros?”

“Hm?”

Sahasarel’s gaze had caught on the book in Caedros’ hands. Not an obscure collection nor a happy one. “May I ask something personal?”

It made Caedros want to laugh. They had been thrown into a state of personal the moment each drank from the marriage cup and vowed themselves to the land. “Why not?” he asked wearily, barely even thinking of who it was that was asking.

But Sahasarel didn’t seem to take it personal. He came to stand near the chair Caedros had occupied, teeth worrying nervously at his lip. It made Caedros think of his sister smacking small hands away from bad habits unbecoming of princes. No biting one’s lips or nails or scratching an itch in the Principal Court. It struck him with too sharp a pang for such a small irrelevant thing.

“Did you ever cry for them?”

Caedros caught his breath. Such a strange, sharp question. “Why would you ask that?”

Sahasarel flushed red beneath the long fall of his dark hair, and Caedros dug his hands into the arms of his chair in lieu of clenching fists, another habit his sister had never had patience for.

“I’m not curious about grieving customs,” Sahasarel said quietly, and for the first time since Caedros had met the young prince, he seemed serious, like a man and not an overeager puppy. “Unless you want me to join you in any. You should have been given time to grieve.”

It was a sentimental thought, one not suited for royalty. Caedros just gave him a sideways look. “Who has time for tears?” There had been Plague, coronation, marriage, one on top of the other, a rapid change in the hands of power that there would be no vacuum for enemies to occupy.

But Sahasarel bit his lip again. “I do. It is not right that those we love should go unmourned.” He looked rueful as he added, “I hope someone cries for me when I am gone.”

Caedros blinked at him, then stared. “Who wouldn’t?”

Sahasarel was well liked by all, even those who complained of his incessant and troublesome curiosity.

“I was always the son that would leave,” Sahasarel said frankly. “My family will not be there when I die, nor will they miss what they already do not have.”

For a moment, Caedros wondered if Eleya mourned all those she’d never had. He reached out and tucked his fingers under Sahasarel’s jaw to draw him closer. He watched Sahasarel’s eyes grow wide and pulled him down and close enough to kiss him softly, a small startled sound drawn from Sahasarel’s throat.

“I’ll cry for you when you’re gone,” Caedros said. “I’ll miss you.”

He leaned his head against Sahasarel’s shoulder and sighed, finding it not unwelcome when Sahasarel reached up his arm to wrap around his shoulders and settled against the arm of the chair to hold Caedros better.

“I do miss them,” Caedros said quietly. “I cried for my sister.” It left him feeling hollow inside, cold in places that used to be warm. “I miss her all the time.”

It was warm in Sahasarel’s embrace, and he let himself feel it without the need for more words.


	6. Consummation of the Fourth Land

Sahasarel had wondered at the knowing words and looks Nirune used when watching the previous consummations, and he finally asked directly. “Did you sleep with others too before the marriage?”

Caedros had. Tanata had. Only they’d slept with men and not women.

Nirune just looked at him. “Who would want to offend the gods?”

Considering all that happened, it was a reasonable question and a reasonable answer, but it troubled Sahasarel still. “Do you think Caedros and Tanata have offended the gods?”

“Who can say, but the gods.” Nirune let his mouth shift to a sharp sideways smile.

Sahasarel asked him no more.

* * *

She found him in the courtyard in the heat of the day and wondered a moment to herself why she had chosen to seek him out, but Eleya knew there was one husband she did not understand. It bothered her. As an oracle, there were always those hard to read, but Nirune had managed to be harder than most, despite offering her the most comfort she had received when he held her gently last night.

“Leave us,” she ordered her maidservant who had followed behind her dutifully. “I do not require a chaperone with my husband.”

The maidservant hesitated less than an instant before disappearing on swift feet. Anessa moved another foot away to lean on a wall just out of hearing range should their voices remain quiet. Eleya had little concern for that. Nirune’s voice was always quiet. It rumbled through her pleasantly but never rose for other ears to take hold of.

"That serving girl is in someone's pay," Nirune said suddenly. "You should get rid of her."

Eleya looked at him in surprise. “The one I just dismissed?”

He tilted his head sideways to look at her and made a small sound of affirmation.

It was the last thing she’d expected him to open with. “I see. Do you know whose pay she’s in?”

"Don't you have a master of spies?" he asked, mild humor in his voice.

Something cold washed over her. "He was among my relatives." There was nothing to be done about that.

Nirune understood immediately, a flicker of comprehension on his face. "You need to appoint a new one."

One of the many tasks Eleya was beginning to realize she had yet to accomplish. She sighed, as she thought over who to ask for help. The Royal Counselors were helpful, but they were not as astute in judging character as they believed. "Is there anyone you trust for the job?"

"We're not in the plains, my Queen." His tone implied she should have known this and that he wouldn’t know the eddies of loyalty and trust in her court as he did his own.

She did know. But she already knew that ruling was a burden she could not carry without help. "Could you find someone you would trust?"

There was a long moment of silence, the quiet sound of his breathing. He wasn’t looking at her. He was studying the Guard doing their exercises. "Yes," he said at last, no uncertainty, no questioning.

Relief welled within her. She nodded as she had when directing the younger novices about. "Then do so."

"You command like a Queen," he commented, half complaint.

It made her laugh. "I've spent the last few days being told that I do not." And perhaps it should have bothered her more than it did, but it was hardly her fault she’d learned deportment in the service of the gods and not the service of a country. “We all do our duty,” she said, considering Tanata and Sahasarel and even Caedros, all of whom had always acknowledged they’d never had a choice.

But Nirune looked up sharply, something slipping sideways and cutting through the warm unchanging intensity of his patterns she’d somehow grown used to. She caught her breath as he came closer. She stared up at him evenly, unsure of why she felt the sudden need to do so.

When he touched her, it wasn’t nearly what she’d expected. She’d expected something intimidating, not the gentle way he drew his fingers softly over the line of her hair to tuck back the loose strands. “This,” he said low and close to her, syllables warming the air between them, “isn’t duty.”

Eleya knew there was something there, something she could feel but not name, and for the first time, it was shimmering on the surface, in the spoken, and this is what she had come here for. To know him before she claimed him.

“Then what is it?” she asked.

He only smiled, mouth edging up on one side. “Aren’t my patterns right here?”

“I think you like being mysterious,” she said dryly.

He said nothing for a long moment, fingers still lingering warmly at her temple. At last, he dropped his hand and caught hers with it to draw her down to the bench they’d been standing near.

He spoke as if instructing, as if he’d heard the words from his own father or mother and was now passing them to her. “We are chosen to stand between the humans and the gods, our own country and those around us.”

She nodded. 

He frowned. “For you to be chosen, _now_ , over all your house, for Caedros to be chosen and his older sister barred from becoming Princess in the land, something terrible is coming, and I will protect you from it in all ways I can. Can’t you feel that pattern? This is fate.”

It was the unspoken thing everyone in the land could feel. Something was coming or the gods would never have intervened so harshly. And she had been trained to serve them but she wondered sometimes, if she could truly be the strong priest king needed for a time of upheaval. “You believe in fate?” Perhaps it should comfort her, but it did not.

It was a long moment before Nirune whispered, “Who dare fight the gods?” There was story behind such words, one she did not wish to hear.

Eleya shuddered, thinking of all she had lost. “I did not fight the gods.”

“I believe you.” He rose to collect his sword, and she stared at him, suddenly aglow in the sunlight when he stepped out from the shadows.

“You are the prince of the metal,” she realized. A sharpened blade honed to his purpose and with no consideration of whether it was duty or pleasure that drove him.

He turned to her and smiled. “And you are the daughter of the metal,” he reminded her.

She was, she realized. Her mother had been the princess of that element and served well within it, even if she'd been born from a land traditionally of stone. There was something akin between them. “But I am not the Metal Queen,” she said, still uncertain of what exactly beat within her.

He didn’t answer then. He looked to Tanata, just entering the courtyard, and offered to spar for a little while.

* * *

Nirune enjoyed crossing swords with Tanata. Both of them understood the necessity of occupying fully the position you were placed in. Tanata fought grim and worthy in the face of things that made it difficult to serve: a father who did not want him, a role he’d been born for denied him, and the obligation to marry a woman he would never love the way some might think he ought.

Nirune was unconflicted. Some days, he thought there was something wrong with him that no passion burned in his heart for or against the role he was born to fill. No one had ever stood against him taking up the position of First Prince, no one had demanded he remain in the Eastern Plains to rule after his father, and he had no quarrel with the gods.

But the gods had chosen those who had quarrel with them, and Nirune found losing himself in the focus of a battle with Tanata helped ease the way that troubled him. The Eastern Plains had given themselves over to their purpose after his grandfather had angered the gods and brought fear upon their land. The gods had never found reason to harm them under the guidance of Nirune’s father.

He’d taken Nirune out to the fields when he was still a small boy to show him the harvests of the Four Lands. It was the plains that grew their food and delivered it to the cities and mountains and isles.

 _“You are protector and keeper over the Fourth Land,”_ his father had told him. _“Guard it with your life. You are one among many brothers. The land is only one among four.”_

Nirune grunted with the effort of blocking Tanata’s strikes, whirled with the instinct for battle he’d honed against raiders and bandits, felt the pattern trembling there on a distant horizon that he had been born for this now, to protect his husbands and wife against others and against their own selves.

* * *

He answered her later, passing in the hallway, before the evening meal and the consummation of the Fourth Land. “Eleya.”

She paused, looking at him with a soft question on a stoic expression that had long ago lost the urge to softness. He wondered sometimes when he looked at her, what did they teach oracles that she so rarely allowed herself to feel anything as deeply as she ought.

It hid her true nature, that neutral aura of service she pulled over her skin like armor every morning. She would serve the Four Lands well, he thought, but it was not for her service that the gods chose her.

“You are the Ice Queen.”

She stared at him, breath caught in her chest, a startled look in her eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and he felt it between them, wondered if it was the patterns oracles spoke of. But she left it unsaid. She closed her mouth, looked thoughtful, and finally nodded. “Thank you, Nirune.” She swept on and he didn’t wait to see her go.

* * *

She was starting to feel the act instinctively by the fourth night, and he’d been watching closely. She could tell at first that he was fumbling with the unfamiliarity, but he continued the way he’d seen it until it felt natural, following the trail of pleasure on her body the others had marked before him. He didn’t need her guidance to find her clit or make her tremble and ache, shivering with heat and want. He didn’t waste time with feather light kisses when she preferred to gasp under the hard press of mouth to neck, the nip and scrape of teeth over her jaw and shoulders, the bruising warmth of him marking her below her collarbones and between her breasts.

He let her press him down and ride him, leaned his head lazily back into the pillow with a grin too fierce to be subdued. He was generous with her, hands pressing warm and rough everywhere she put them, thrusting up into her with every clench of her fingers demanding more.

It didn’t last nearly as long as it should or could because they were both impatient, and then she was coming in a haze of desire, distantly aware she only outlasted him by moments. She leaned down to press her face to his shoulder as she panted in the aftermath, dizzy and lightheaded with the intensity of it. He rubbed his fingers gently over her scalp through her hair, and she listened to his own breath move slowly from ragged to even.

The ritual was soothing now. It was Caedros who washed her, his touch gentle through the soft damp cloth, and Tanata who washed Nirune as Sahasarel brought the warm coverlet to press over them both. Eleya caught Caedros’ and Sahasarel’s fingers before they withdrew, her voice caught in her throat and her gaze on Tanata’s, the one she could not reach with her hands. He settled on the edge of the bed beside Nirune, and she tried to put words to this nameless feeling within her.

There were five people here, five of them, and somehow the moment felt intimate and utterly private, as though in only four days they had made a space for themselves with only room for them and room enough to know each other.

“It’s tradition,” she said softly with a glance at Caedros, the one who cared most about that, “for it to be just the two of us tonight. But tomorrow,” she paused, “tomorrow would you stay?”

All of them. Together.

Nirune huffed a small scoffing chuckle. “There isn’t room on the bed.”

He was not a small man and the bed _swallowed_ the two of them. She almost told him so, but Sahasarel spoke first with barely contained eagerness. “I think we could make it work.”

Tanata’s, “If that is what you wish,” overlapped Caedros’ answer, “Certainly, my Queen.”

She tightened her grip reflexively and looked at the northern prince. “Will you never call me Eleya?” she asked.

He stared at her, eyes widening, for a heartbeat’s moment, then his face and voice softened as he breathed, “Eleya.”


End file.
